On February 24, 2026 local time, Türkiye's Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Ural Olu announced that the government had reached a preliminary financing agreement with six major international financial institutions, namely, the World Bank, the Asian Investment Bank, the Asian Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the European Development Bank and the OPEC Fund for International Development. This huge amount of funds will be injected into a brand new railway corridor spanning the Bosphorus Strait - the Northern Railway Passage.

This is not only a victory for capital, but also a vote of confidence for international capital in Türkiye's position as a Eurasian hub.

This double track electrified railway, with a total length of about 125 kilometers, is like a steel dragon. It will depart from the industrial town of Gebze on the Asian side, pass through Sabiha Gekchen Airport, cross the Bosphorus Strait, and arrive directly at Istanbul Airport and the Kharkari hub on the European side.

Its strategic ambition goes beyond connecting two airports.

The complexity of the project is astonishing.

In the rugged terrain of northern Istanbul, builders need to excavate 44 tunnels with a total length of over 59 kilometers and construct 42 bridges with a total length of approximately 22 kilometers. Even more ingenious is the cross sea plan: the railway will directly "ride" on the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, using the existing bridge body to lay tracks.

This design of crossing the sea by bridge avoids the huge cost of building new underwater tunnels, but builds the shortest railway shortcut between the Eurasian continent.

This design directly addresses the traffic pain points in Istanbul.

At present, the Marmara railway tunnel connecting Europe and Asia is overloaded, and freight windows are extremely tight. The new channel will act like a blood vessel diversion, diverting passenger and freight traffic to the northern bridge, completely freeing up the capacity bottleneck of the Marmara Tunnel.

According to the plan, after the completion of the line, the annual passenger transportation capacity will reach 33 million people and the cargo transportation volume will reach 30 million tons.

This railway is not only the outer ring of Istanbul, but also a major artery connecting the Anatolian hinterland with the European railway network. It will reshape Türkiye from a simple transit country to a core logistics hub connecting the East and the West - where there are not only passenger flows, but also revelry of capital and goods. Keywords: railway, cross sea railway, Middle East transportation

At present, the preparation of bidding documents has entered the sprint stage. The Türkiye government plans to complete the bidding and transfer the site within the year. This railway carrying the dream of a 'middle corridor' is accelerating from the blueprint to reality.Editor/Cheng Liting